Here Come the Pirates!

In other words: 24 hours of pure joy. In celebration of this momentous day, I have a copy of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Whaling to give away. Whoever sends me the most entertaining piratical email / voicemail wins the book – simple as that. Here’s a quote from page 2 – probably not strictly legal, but people likely read this far in the bookshop anyway:

The mast completely flattened the pirate who liked to show off how much he knew about wine, whilst the pirate with a hook for a hand found himself engulfed in a billowing white sail, and he was soon chasing the other pirates about, pretending to be a ghost. There was such a commotion none of the pirates even noticed the galley doors swing open and the Pirate Captain himself step out onto the deck. The Pirate Captain had taken to wearing a dashing maroon smoking jacket and a blousy white shirt that had most of the buttons undone to reveal the glossy hairs on his chest. His chest hairs were almost as well-conditioned as the hairs in his luxurious beard, which many of the crew felt to be one of the seven wonders of the oceanic world. If the pirate crew had been asked to list the seven wonders of the oceanic world in full they would have confidently said, in ascending order: 1) the Lighthouse at Pharos; 2) the Colossus of Rhodes; 3) Lulworth Cove; 4) those jellyfish that light up; 5) Lobsters; 6) Girls in Bikinis; 7) the Pirate Captain’s fantastic beard.

How can you resist a book with paragraphs like that?

To win it, get in touch using the details at the top of the right-hand sidebar. Email / call via skype / call via normal phone…If it’s a voicemail, please leave some hint as to who you are. The sole criterion is that it has to be piratical! I’ll post anywhere in the world, and the prize will be awarded on Monday evening, GMT. The judge’s decision is, of course, final 🙂